Barry Tompkins: An air of insecurity about plane travel

Bay Area sportscaster Barry Tompkins sits in a restaurant on Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, in Fairfax, Calif. He began his career in San Francisco in 1965 and has worked for HBO and Fox Sports Net. He is known for his work as a boxing commentator, but has covered football and other sports. He lives nearby in Ross.
(IJ photo/Frankie Frost
Frankie Frost

The question was being asked by a TSA employee at SFO who was holding my driver's license with my name and photo on it. I wasn't sure if it was some sort of giveaway — say your name correctly and you are automatically registered for a drawing to win your own 747 — or if it was simply a pop quiz just to see if maybe I was driving a car under an assumed name.

I did answer the question correctly. Alas, no reward, only the opportunity to move to the next line of 500 people, each of whom was riding on an airplane for the first time.

Of course, I get behind the guy carrying three hypodermic needles, which resulted in an interrogation involving everyone wearing a uniform in the airport with the exception of a hotel doorman, who was rushing off to work, and a nurse.

After causing a backup in the line that was starting to reach Burlingame, the grand pooh-bah muckety-muck TSA agent finally allowed the diabetic gentleman to pass.

There are some good and courteous TSA agents, particularly in San Francisco and Oakland. But, I always tend to think of them like walk-ons on a college basketball team. You've got all your scholarship guys who don't let things like classroom studies stand in the way of their points per game, and then you've got the really smart walk-ons who bring the team's GPA up to the NCAA minimum. So it is at airports these days.

Recently the TSA implemented a plan to help people like myself, who spend a large portion of their waking hours taking off shoes, removing everything from their pockets, carrying nothing over 3 ounces of liquid and leaving the occasional belt behind just as a handsome parting gift.

They allow you to go through a process that prescreens you by means of a supposed security check showing if you at anytime in your life ate in an Afghani restaurant or had coffee with anyone whose name begins with Mu. Once you have passed that muster you are allowed special status.

In major airports around the country now there is a line for TSA prescreening. You needn't remove your toiletries or computer, you keep your shoes on, everything stays in your pockets (save your cellphone), and you are in and out and on your way to the gate in approximately three minutes.

Perfect.

Almost.

The rub comes when you show your boarding pass with the words "TSA Prescreened" on it and the magic machine that needs to beep three times to authorize the preauthorized authorization beeps only once. You lose. And it's the back of the line in Burlingame, buddy.

It seems that the little beeping machine has a mind of its own and randomly selects one of its prescreened subjects saying, "We don't believe you. We're quite sure you once ate kebabs with a person named Muhammad who obviously is a subversive."

"What? It says 'prescreened' right on the boarding pass. The government issued this to me after an intensive background check. Besides which, I hate kebabs."

This is accompanied by the ever-present TSA agent whose facial expression hasn't changed since those treatments his mom made him take when he was a child saying, "It only beeped once, sir."

There is no answer to "It only beeped once, sir."

So, the TSA creates a system to help the frequent traveler but because once in every eight times it decides "you could use a little humility, pal" it changes nothing. I know, I know; it's all new, and there are still a few flaws in our airport security systems.

Maybe they just need a role model, like the DMV. Come to think of it, I guess that's what they've already used.